‘Oh, lovely,’ declared Lucy, and really meant it. The hair-raising trip from Calais, worse if possible than the drive to Dover from her home, was worth every heart-stopping moment. She could forget it, anyway; she would be going back by boat at the end of her visit and probably Doctor de Groot would be too busy to drive her around. Perhaps Mies had a car…
They were nearing the end of their journey now, the Churchilllaan where Doctor de Groot had a flat, and as it came into view she could see that it hadn’t changed at all. It was on the ground floor, surrounded by green lawns and an ornamental canal with ducks on it and flowering shrubs, but no garden of its own. The doctor drew up untidily before the entrance, helped her out and pressed the button which would allow the occupants of the flat to open the front door. ‘I have a key,’ he explained, ‘but Mies likes to know when I am home.’
The entrance was rather impressive, with panelled walls and rather peculiar murals, a staircase wound itself up the side of one wall and there were two lifts facing the door, but the doctor’s front door was one of two leading from the foyer and Mies, warned of their coming, was already there.
Mies, unlike her surroundings, had changed quite a lot. Lucy hadn’t see her for almost eight years and now, a year younger than she, at twenty-two Mies was quite something—ash-blonde hair, cut short and curling, big blue eyes and a stunning figure. Lucy, not an envious girl by nature, flung herself at her friend with a yelp of delight. ‘You’re gorgeous!’ she declared. ‘Who’d have thought it eight years ago—you’re a raving beauty, Mies!’
Mies looked pleased. ‘You think, yes?’ She returned Lucy’s hug and then stood back to study her.
‘No need,’ observed Lucy a little wryly. ‘I’ve not changed, you see.’
Mies made a little face. ‘Perhaps not, but your figure is O.K. and your eyes are extraordinaire.’
‘Green,’ said Lucy flatly as she followed the doctor and Mies into the flat.
‘You have the same room,’ said Mies, ‘so that you feel you are at home.’ She smiled warmly as she led the way across the wide hall and down a short passage. The flat was a large one, its rooms lofty and well furnished. As far as Lucy could remember, it hadn’t changed in the least. She unpacked in her pretty little bedroom and went along to the dining room for supper, a meal they ate without haste, catching up on news and reminding each other of all the things they had done when she had stayed there before.
‘I work,’ explained Mies, ‘for Papa, but now I take a holiday and we go out, Lucy. I have not a car…’ she shot a vexed look at her father as she spoke, ‘but there are bicycles. You can still use a fiets?’
‘Oh, rather, though I daresay I’ll be scared to death in Amsterdam.’
The doctor glanced up. ‘I think that maybe I will take a few hours off and we will take you for a little trip, Lucy. Into the country, perhaps?’
‘Sounds smashing,’ agreed Lucy happily, ‘but just pottering suits me, you know.’
‘We will also potter,’ declared Mies seriously, ‘and you will speak English to me, Lucy, for I am now with rust.’ She shrugged her shoulders. ‘I speak only a very little and I forget.’
‘You’ll remember every word in a couple of days,’ observed Lucy comfortably. ‘I wish I could speak Dutch even half as well.’
Mies poured their after supper coffee. ‘Truly? Then we will also speak Dutch and you will learn quickly.’
They spent the rest of the evening telling each other what they did and whether they liked it or not while the doctor retired to his study to read his post. ‘I shall marry,’ declared Mies, ‘it is nice to work for Papa but not for too long, I think. I have many friends but no one that I wish to marry.’ She paused. ‘At least I think so.’
Lucy thought how nice it must be; so pretty that one could pick and choose instead of just waiting and hoping that one day some man would come along and want to marry one. True, she was only twenty-three, but the years went fast and there were any number of pretty girls growing up all the time. Probably she would have to settle for someone who had been crossed in love and wanted to make a second choice, or a widower with troublesome children, looking for a sensible woman to mind them; probably no one would ask her at all. A sudden and quite surprising memory flashed through her head of Mr der Linssen and with it a kind of nameless wish that he could have fallen for her—even for a day or two, she conceded; it would have done her ego no end of good.
‘You dream?’ enquired Mies.
Lucy shook her head. ‘What sort of a man are you going to marry?’ she asked.
The subject kept them happily talking until bedtime.
Lucy spent the next two days renewing her acquaintance with Amsterdam; the actual city hadn’t changed, she discovered, only the Kalverstraat was full of modern shops now, crowding out the small, expensive ones she remembered, but de Bijenkorf was still there and so was Vroom and Dreesman, and C. & A. The pair of them wandered happily from shop to shop, buying nothing at all and drinking coffee in one of the small coffee bars which were all over the place. They spent a long time in Krause en Vogelzang too, looking at wildly expensive undies and clothes which Mies had made up her mind she would have if she got married. ‘Papa gives me a salary,’ she explained, ‘but it isn’t much,’ she mentioned a sum which was almost twice Lucy’s salary—‘but when I decide to marry then he will give me all the money I want. I shall have beautiful clothes and the finest linen for my house.’ She smiled brilliantly at Lucy. ‘And you, your papa will do that for you also?’
‘Oh, rather,’ agreed Lucy promptly, telling herself that it wasn’t really a fib; he would if he had the money. Mies was an only child and it was a little hard for her to understand that not everyone lived in the comfort she had had all her life.
‘You shall come to the wedding,’ said Mies, tucking an arm into Lucy’s, ‘and there you will meet a very suitable husband.’ She gave the arm a tug. ‘Let us drink more coffee before we return home.’
It was during dinner that Doctor de Groot suggested that Lucy might like to see the clinic he had set up in a street off the Haarlemmerdijk. ‘Not my own, of course,’ he explained, ‘but I have the widest support from the Health Service and work closely with the hospital authorities.’
‘Every day?’ asked Lucy.
‘On four days a week, afternoon and evenings. I have my own surgery each morning—you remember it, close by?’
‘That’s where I work,’ interrupted Mies. ‘Papa doesn’t like me to go to the clinic, only to visit. I shall come with you tomorrow. Shall we go with you, Papa, or take a taxi?’
‘Supposing you come in the afternoon? I shall be home for lunch and I can drive you both there, then you can take a taxi home when you are ready.’
The weather had changed in the morning, the bright autumn sunshine had been nudged away by a nippy little wind and billowing clouds. The two girls spent the morning going through Mies’ wardrobe while the daily maid did the housework and made the beds and presently brought them coffee.
She prepared most of their lunch too; Lucy, used to giving a hand round the house, felt guilty at doing nothing at all, but Mies, when consulted, had looked quite surprised. ‘But of course you do nothing,’ she exclaimed,
